Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
I attended a training session you gave a few years ago. One of my main take-aways was that as advisors, we don’t want to turn ourselves into “salespeople.” I remembered this was a negative thing.
But we have a new lead advisor on our team and her mantra is that we are salespeople. She says without us being salespeople there is nothing here to charge assets on, no clients to manage and no business to run. She believes we should be proud of the fact that we sell and talk to our clients as sales professionals.
Should we be pushy about selling or be more discreet in our approach? My clients are very buttoned up older people and they often complain about salesy people – recently one client was telling me about a guy pushing brand new windows for over $15,000. I don’t see myself becoming like the window guy, pushing their product, but I can’t argue with the lead advisor’s points about growing the business. I thought I had clarity but I need more.
Am I a salesperson? Should I be?
A.H.
Dear A.H.,
I’m inferring from your question that you don’t consider yourself to be a salesperson. The good news is that, in this industry, there are many different styles and approaches that work and can lead to effective business growth. Because most advisors did not get their CFP®, CFA®, CIMA® or other certification in order to sell, but because they loved investing and were good with numbers, it can be off-putting to tell an advisor they have to be a salesperson.
But you can sell effectively without being salesy and it is actually easy to do.
Sales is, and always has been, about building relationships. Yes, if you read some books on “going for the close” or even worse “going for the jugular” or attend sales training that talks about “overcoming objections” and the like, you might think the process is an adversarial one. The salesperson, whomever it may be, sits on one side with their prospect (target) on the other. The goal is for the salesperson to figure out how to overcome the objections, and go for the close in order to get the target to buy. It is a “someone wins-someone loses” approach.
I prefer to think about the work financial advisors do as beneficial to many individuals who need support in making good financial decisions. Generally, we have an illiterate population when it comes to finances. Having someone knowledgeable to learn about what you care about, and guide you to make good decisions to meet your goals, is quite valuable. But, you can’t keep what you do to yourself or no one who needs you would ever know it is available! Therein lies the rub and the reason that financial advisors have to get comfortable with the idea of talking to people in the market about what they do.
The most important thing I’ve learned, having done this work for 15 years with thousands of advisors, is that the advisor’s style – behavioral and communicative – has to factor into how they will “sell” most successfully. Your lead advisor, for example, might do great sharing that she is a salesperson and proud of it! It works great for her, but maybe not so well for you. It’s key to sell in a style that fits what makes you comfortable. If you are not comfortable, the person on the other side will not be either.
You do need to share what you do. I have done dozens and dozens of projects with advisors where I will ask them to talk to long-standing clients about obtaining an invitation to talk to a friend or family member. The process goes like this: The advisor tells me why the client would never do this, or how uncomfortable the advisor feels bringing it up; I ask them to try it; and they come back and tell me that either (a) the client had no idea we wanted to meet others and were looking for new clients, (b) the client was thrilled to be able to help someone they cared about, or © the client was honored to be considered as someone the advisor cared enough about to bring the issue up with! Never once, in these many years, did an advisor come back and say the client yelled at them or disliked them for asking.
You can be a non-sales professional who learns how to sell in a comfortable and effective manner, and you can be a salesy advisor who is more comfortable being direct and upfront about what you need. It depends on your style and that of the receiving audience.
Do something, and don’t use the idea that you don’t want to be salesy as a crutch and hide behind. I have taken most of my best ideas and put them online for advisors to access. Please visit my web site to learn more and see if some of what I offer could be useful to you.
Don’t stop trying to improve your skills in this area – your clients and prospects who don’t even know you yet need you.
Dear Bev,
Our advisory firm is growing like crazy. I run the admin team and we’ve brought on some great new talent in the last 18 months. These are young people who are hungry to contribute and want to learn.
The problem is that we are moving so quickly I don’t have time to mentor them. I put one of my longer term employees in an assistant role to do this. But she is so busy trying to deal with our custodians and implement a new system that she would have to do the mentoring nights and weekends.
What do you do when you are a manager with a full-time job, but you have team members who expect you to mentor and train them? I can’t afford to lose these people but I can’t work harder than I already am.
S.O.
Dear S.O.,
I’m hoping that sometime in my career the idea that talented people can effectively be a “player-coach” goes away and we recognize that both roles require a tremendous amount of focus and energy. You don’t see Bill Belichick on the field to run plays; even though Alex Cora was a former player, he isn’t running plays now that he is a manager. I don’t believe someone who is responsible to get the work done can also spend the necessary time coaching and mentoring people to bring them to a level necessary to truly groom the next generation of leaders.
However, you are stuck in your situation and showing my column to your firm leaders isn’t going to change anyone’s minds. You have taken one good step to insert someone who can be a coach and mentor. But you need to remove responsibilities from her plate. Is it possible that part of what she coaches and mentors on is the work she is currently doing interfacing with custodians and guiding implementation of the system? Could she play more of an oversight role and allow these new team members to get more involved?
Create a peer-mentoring situation where some of your more seasoned people mentor the newbies. Or delegate more of what you do to your assistant manager or to others within your firm. One thing I often notice with managers who are good at what they do is that they can be loath to let go of things they either like to do, or are good at. Take a hard look at whether you are holding on more than needed.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Entrepreneurship. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 